Monday, September 29, 2008

The stories in the book may be real, but John McCain's signature on some copies of "Faith of My Fathers" are not the real deal, according to a publisher of autographed and collectible books.

Tim Miller, founder of FlatSigned Press, a Nashville-based publishing company specializing in rare and collectible books, says he purchased books that claimed to have an authentic McCain signature and sent them to a New York City auction house to be resold. But instead, an expert there determined the signatures were likely done by a secretary and not the presidential candidate.

Miller says it surprised him because signed books up until recently were being sold on Sen. McCain's campaign Web site at a premium price.

"This one auction house and others just discovered yesterday that they have unwittingly been selling secretarial-signed John McCain books for months and now they must do the very embarrassing and financially hurtful steps of letting their customers know that they had been wrong when they had previously sold ‘signed' John McCain books as being hand-signed by the presidential candidate," says Miller.

Miller says it's not unheard of for secretaries or other subordinates to sign books instead of the famous politician author. But he says it is unusual for someone to sell "signed" books at a premium when they are not authentic which it appears is what the McCain campaign was doing.

The campaign has since removed the ‘autographed' book from its Web site.

Miller says fake autographs undermine and even threaten what is now a $1-billion industry.

"In this economy you don't want to harm any sector of the economy," says Miller. "We in the industry feel the pain when fakes are presented as authentic."